Question:
All I know is that there has been a dozen or so whom I have evaluated over the past year that have had asperger's in their record. I haven't seen one yet who met the criteria.

Which criteria are you using? According to Professor Chris Gillberg the children in Hans Asperger's original study do not match the criteria in DSM IV for Asperger's syndrome. I'm using the only criteria set for which we can receive reimbursement.

Answer: once you know what you're looking for, Autistic Spectrum Disorders (like Asperger's Syndrome) are relatively easy to diagnose. There are odd cases, of course, that are tricky, or mixtures of conditions (like AS with ADHD, for instance) but generally, if you've got social skills difficulties, obsessive behaviours and an odd use of language, and the person's been "unusual" since early childhood, you've got an ASD.

Even if you haven't got an ASD, but you have got similar symptoms, due to a head injury, for instance, if the interventions for ASDs help the patient, the label may be useful (usually "Post Head-injury Syndrome with autistic tendencies" or something like that).

Evolutionary Biologists have explanations as to why autism genes are prevalent in our species - a little bit of autism is apparently a good thing for survival. However, approximately 1 in 100 men (and a few in 10,000 women) have a little too many of these genes and rather too much autism. ASDs aren't all that common, but are hardly rare either. It's hardly surprising, with all the recent media interest in the subject, that we're beginning to notice that 1% of the population a little more.